Jack Kerouac character reference key

My work comprises one vast book like Proust's except that my remembrances are written on the run instead of afterwards in a sick bed. Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same personae names in each work. On the Road, The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums, Doctor Sax, Maggie Cassidy, Tristessa, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody and the others including this book Big Sur are just chapters in the whole work which I call The Duluoz Legend. In my old age I intend to collect all my work and re-insert my pantheon of uniform names, leave the long shelf full of books there, and die happy. The whole thing forms one enormous comedy, seen through the eyes of poor Ti Jean (me), otherwise known as Jack Duluoz, the world of raging action and folly and also gentle sweetness seen through the keyhole of his eye.Jack Kerouac

Sadly, Kerouac's destructive lifestyle caught up with him before he ever reached his golden goal of "old age", and as of this noding, his publishers are still squabbling amongst themselves over the rights to all his works. Maybe someday down the road, Jack's idea of "one vast book" will be fully realized, but in the meantime, avid readers of Kerouac's legend have been left to piece together the true-life identities of his larger-than-life characters from the scattered hints left behind in the stories themselves and in his various biographies.

This is what I've got so far.

It's not done yet. Granted, compared to most it looks comprehensive as hell, but it still isn't done yet. I've been gradually building this thing in notebook form from the day I started reading Jack's books. It's compiled and distilled from every source I could find. Yet, it's still all full of holes, simply because Kerouac's whirlwind life touched on the lives of so many others.

(note: that was my roundabout way of saying "any corrections and additions appreciated." Really. If you haven't noticed, this is just one of those things that I seem to care about quite a lot. Go figure.)

The top bit contains brief bios on the principle characters of Kerouac's tales. Further down, you'll find a full list of names next to thumbnail descriptions, organized according to the books in which they appear. There's also a small list of trusty sources at the bottom, highly recommended if you want to learn more.

major note:

Jack Kerouac was a kind of fiction writer, a mythographer. This is, perhaps, a difficult concept for most readers to understand, since clearly all of his novels and poems are based on real experiences and the characters real people. However, Kerouac always insisted that what he was writing was not his memoirs, but his Legend, told in the style that you might tell your life story to close friends-- confessional, personable, spontaneous. Boring stretches were compressed, embarrasing parts glossed over, exciting parts exaggerated to epic proportions.

Sometimes things were intentionally changed, to avoid libel suits or protect the reputations of his friends. From On The Road, for instance, you might never guess that Ginsberg was homosexual, those telling details were carefully removed from the original manuscript. In The Subterraneans-- which deals with an even stronger 1950s taboo, interracial sex-- Yuri Gligoric is first described as "a tall thin blond Yugoslavian from Oregon". (Gregory Corso, whom the character was based on, was actually a short built dark-haired Italian from New York). In fact, the entire setting of the Subterraneans was eventually changed from New York's Greenwich Village to San Francisco's North Beach.

The point is, as with any story told with good friends over beers, it becomes all but impossible to separate fiction from fact, and all of Jack's characterizations should be taken as he meant them: with a wink and a smile.

"Don't think of me as a simple character-- A lecher, a ship-jumper, a loafer, a conner of old women, even of queers, an idiot, nay a drunken baby Indian when drinking-- Got socked everywhere and never socked back (except when young tough football player)-- In fact, I don't even know what I was-- Some kind of fevered being as different as a snowflake... in any case, a wondrous mess of contradictions (good enough, said Whitman) but more fit for Holy Russia of the 19th Century than for this modern America of crew cuts and sullen faces in Pontiacs."---Desolation Angels, pg. 257

New York essayist and poet, author of rare beat collections such as Disorderly Houses and Contact Highs. Secretary and close friend of W.H. Auden. Though self-effacing when it came to actually publishing his work, he wrote prolifically, leaving the vast majority of his poetry available only in small, private volumes passed around among his friends.

"The most amazing guy in the world with small dark curly hair making little garter snakes over his brow and his great really angelic eyes shining, rolling, a big burbling baby, a great genius of talk really, wrote research and essays and has (and is famous for) the greatest possible private library in the world, right there in that house, the library due to his erudition and this no reflection also on his big income."---The Subterraneans, pg. 87

"He had more books than I've ever seen in all my life-- two libraries, two rooms loaded from floor to ceiling around all four walls, and such books as the Apocryphal Something-or-Another in ten volumes. He played Verdi operas and pantomined them in his pajamas with a great rip down the back. He didn't give a damn about anything."---On The Road, pg. 127

Highly controversial writer and poet, and a long-time friend of Kerouac. A world traveler, he drifted throughout his life from St. Louis to New York to Texas, and then to Latin America, North Africa and France. Bisexual. A drug addict and gun enthusiast. Married Joan Vollmer in 1957, but shot and killed her 5 years later, in a highly-publicized William Tell stunt gone wrong (most sources confirm that it was a tragic mistake, not murder. They were entertaining friends and drinking; Joan put a glass of gin on her head, and teased Bill to try to shoot it off.) Burroughs would go on to write such works as Junky, Nova Express, and The Soft Machine, along with his masterwork Naked Lunch (of which Jack had helped type-up in Tangier, on his own typewriter)

"But when I had heard about 'Will Hubbard' I had pictured a stocky, dark-haired person of peculiar intensity because of the reports about him, the peculiar directness of his actions, but here he had come walking into my pad tall and bespectacled and thin in a seersucker suit as tho he's just returned from a compound in Equatorial Africa where he'd sat at dusk with a martini discussing the peculiarities... Tall, 6 foot 1, strange, inscrutable because ordinary-looking (scrutable), like a shy bank clerk with a patrician thinlipped cold bluelipped face, blue eyes saying nothing behind steel rims and glass, sandy hair, a little wispy."---Vanity of Duluoz, pg.199

"There was this kid from New Orleans called Claude de Maubris who was born in England of a French viscount now in the consular service, and of an English mother, and who now lived with his grandmother in a Louisiana estate whenever he was there, which was seldom, blond, eighteen, of fantastic male beauty like a blond Tyrone Power... But he was okay. He was no fairy and he was strong and wiry and that first night we got really drunk and he told me to get into an empty barrel and then proceeded to roll the barrel down the sidewalks of upper Broadway. A few nights later I do remember we sat in puddles of rain together in a crashing downpour and poured black ink over our hair... yelling folk songs and all kindsa songs. I got to like him more and more."---Vanity of Duluoz, pg. 194

note: Lucien wasn't really a French aristocrat's son, that was just an injoke between Kerouac and Carr.

Kerouac's best friend and foremost inspiration. Son of a vagabond in Denver, Colorado. A reckless car thief and truant, he was in and out of state reformatories for most of his young life. While incarcerated, he learned about Ginsberg and Kerouac in letters sent from his friend Hal Chase at Columbia. He traveled there to meet them shortly after his release, along with his young wife Luanne Henderson. In New York, Neal also met Carolyn Robinson, and though he would soon divorce Luanne and marry Carolyn, he would continue to foster a relationship with both women, and countless others, for the rest of his life. Kerouac and Cassady took several road trips together, and later, after a falling out with Jack, he traveled with Ken Kesey during his notorious experiments with LSD. He died in 1968, from a drug overdose.

"He was simply a youth tremendously excited with life, and though he was a con-man, he was only conning because he wanted so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him. He was conning me and I knew it, and he knew I knew (this was the basis of our relationship)."---On the Road, pg. 4

"Have you ever seen anyone like Cody Pomeray? -- a young guy with a bony face that looks like it's been pressed against metal bars to get that dogged look of suffering... who walks as fast as he can go on the balls of his feet, talking excitedly and gesticulating... There are some young men you look at who seem completely safe, maybe just because of a Scandanavian ski sweater, angelic, saved; on Cody Pomeray it immediately becomes a dirty stolen sweater worn in wild sweats."---Visions of Cody, pg. 48

"A young poet, 22... wanting, naturally, as a young unpublished unknown but very genius poet to destroy the big established gods and raise himself--wanting therefore their women too, being uninhibited, or unsaddened, yet, at least-- I liked him."---The Subterraneans, pg. 66

"Do you dig? do you understand? The way he says "understand," like, "stahnd," like Frank Sinatra, like something New York, like something new in the world, a real down-from-the-bottom city Poet at last, like Christopher Smart and Blake, like Tom O Bedlam, the song of the streets and of alley cats, the great great Raphael Urso who'd made me so mad in 1953 when he made it with my girl-- but whose fault was that? mine as much as theirs..."---Desolation Angels, pg. 142

French expatriate and long-time friend of Kerouac. First met Jack at Horace Mann prep school as teenagers. The pair later shared apartments in California and New York. Because of his generous, good-hearted nature and more traditional approach to "civilized" life, Henri was one of the only friends that Jack's parents actually trusted (ironic, since in fact Cru was a compulsive schemer and thief, constantly living beyond his means).

"I climbed in and there he was, sleeping with his girl, Lee Ann-- on a bed he stole from a merchant ship, he told me later; imagine the deck engineer of a merchant ship sneaking over the side in the middle of the night with a bed, and heaving and straining at the oars. This barely describes Remi Boncoeur... Remi was a tall, dark, handsome Frenchman (he looked like a kind of Marseille black-marketeer of twenty); because he was French he had to talk in jazz American; his English was perfect, his French was perfect. He liked to dress sharp, slightly on the collegiate side and go out with fancy blondes and spend a lot of money."---On The Road, pg. 61

"I was sitting in Johnnie's apartment one day when the door opened and in walks this spindly Jewish kid with horn-rimmed glasses and tremendous ears sticking out, seventeen years old, burning black eyes, a strangely deep mature voice... I didn't like him anyway. One look at him, a few days of knowing him to avouch my private claim, and I came to the conclusion that he was a lecher who wanted everyone in the world to take a bath in the same big bathtub which would give him a chance to feel legs under the dirty water."---Vanity of Duluoz, pg. 211

"You can see by now Irwin is a weird cat. In my days on the road with Cody he'd followed us to Denver and everywhere bringing his apocalyptic poems and eyes. Now that he was a famous poet he was mellower, doing the things he'd always wanted to do, traveling even more, writing less though, but pulling in the skeins of his purpose-- you might almost say 'Mother Garden'."---Desolation Angels, pg. 259

New England author and essayist. A close friend of Kerouac and Ginsberg. Never really into drinking or taking drugs, and preferring to stay at home with his wife instead of wandering the world, he still kept in constant contact with his circle of friends through letters. His most famous novel, Go, pre-dates On The Road by five years, and features many of the same people that Jack would later immortalize in his Duluoz Legend. Also widely consider to be the one to first coin the term "Beat Generation", in a New York Times article in 1952.

"... a sad, handsome fellow, sweet, generous, and amenable; only once in a while he suddenly has fits of depression and rushes off without saying a word to anyone. This night he was overjoyed. 'Sal, where did you find these absolutely wonderful people? I've never seen anyone like them!'"---On The Road, pg. 125

"The number one Dharma Bum of them all, a kid from Eastern Oregon brought up in a log cabin deep in the woods, from the beginning a woods boy, an axman... He wore a little goatee, strangely Oriental-looking with his somewhat slanted green eyes, but didn't look like a Bohemian at all, and was far from being a Bohemian... Japhy wasn't big, just about five foot seven, but strong and wiry and fast and muscular. His face was a mask of woeful bone, but his eyes twinkled like the eyes of old giggling sages of China, over that little goatee, to offset the rough look of his handsome face."---The Dharma Bums, pg. 9

Zen Buddhist poet and priest. After being introduced by Gary Synder to Kerouac and the others, he became a highly-respected spiritual figure in their circle of friends. In 1973, after years of quiet practice and study, he was declared the Abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center, a Buddhist monastery in San Francisco. A writer himself, author of numerous poetry collections, as well as two novels: Imaginary Speeches for a Brazen Head and You Didn't Even Try. Whalen was a constant reader, despite his terrible eyesight, an affliction which grew even worse as the years went on. Whalen passed away in June of this year (2002). He was 78 years old.

"Japhy's buddy was the aforementioned booboo big old goodhearted Warren Coughlin a hundred and eighty pounds of poet meat, who was advertised by Japhy as more than meets the eye. 'Who is he?' 'He's my big best friend from Oregon, we've known each other a long time. At first you think he's slow and stupid but actually he's a shining diamond. You'll see. Don't let him cut you to ribbons.'"---The Dharma Bums, pg. 12

"Ben (a California poet from Oregon) had inherited this sweet little spot after everybody'd dispersed east some as far as Japan (like old Dharma Bum Jarry Wagner)-- So he sat there smiling over the Lankavatara Scripture in the quiet California night a strange and sweet sight to see after all those three thousand miles from Florida, for me-- He was still smiling as he invited us to sit down... a big pink fellow with glasses and great calm blue eyes like the eyes of a Moon Professor or really of a Nun."---Desolation Angels, pg. 391

*note: for the sake of readability, I hardlinked each name only once. If you don't see an explanation next to a name, scan upward until you find that name in blue (or whatever color you use for links).

Sources:Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Kerouac, by Gerald NicosiaJack's Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac, by Barry GiffordThe Portable Jack Kerouac, edited by Ann ChartersKerouac: A Biography, by Ann ChartersAngelheaded Hipster: A Life of Jack Kerouac, by Steve TurnerJack Kerouac: An Illustrated Biography, by David SandisonDesolate Angel: A Biography, by Dennis McNally